Pilot Study 3: University of Sydney

PILOT STUDY 3

University of Sydney (School of Electrical and Information Engineering)

Course:

Computer Systems (First year, Core for several programs. It is also core for various combined degrees)

Structure:

Lecture, tutorial, lab

Students:

500

Staff:

12

Pilot:

July – Nov 2017

Description: The course was selected by the size of its enrolment (500) and the need for sustained feedback due to the use of a flipped learning strategy. Students are required to work on a set of activities with a structure that is replicated each week. They need to receive suggestions and be made aware of their progress within the overall structure of the course.

The aim of the project is two fold:

see the feasibility is to deploy a comprehensive provision of feedback support at scale in the presence of a comprehensive set of indicators that are continuously updated.

Assess the effect of the provision of these feedback messages.

The tool will be used within the pilot for two purposes:

The provision of a weekly email with a reflection on the work done over the week and suggestions for the next week.

A resource available in the learning environment (HTML page) with a set of suggestions that are continuously updated depending on the interaction with the activities.

The interviews with the instructors will help to identify the aspects of the tool that need to be refined to promote widespread adoption. The interviews with the students will identify the reaction to the support actions and identify potential actions to include in the platform.